Earliest plausible Industrial Revolution?

[Tony Williams]

While Willam Burns Glyn et al dispute this, it is still generally believed that the Inca had no writing.

I suspect that would have placed a serious limitation on the level of further development they could have achieved.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

[Mr.Bluenote]

I suspect that would have placed a serious limitation on the level of further development they could have achieved.

My point exactly, Tony, which was why I asked about writing in the first place.

On the other hand a society that get sufficiently advanced will develop writing sooner or later, I think, unless it's very static or dogmatic. Officials needs to keep records, merchants needs to make cargo manifests, rulers needs to express their wishes in form of laws etc. etc.

Best regards!

- Mr.Bluenote.

 

[Hendryk]

Hendryk,
I was insufficiently precise. I meant China failed to derive a benefit from printing in respect to the topic of this thread; industrial revolutions.

Oh, okay. In that case we are in agreement. I too think that Song China had almost all it needed to take the quantum leap into an early industrial age, but that the wrong socio-economic mix (and, ultimately, the Mongol invasion) kept it from actually doing so.

 

[Historico]

Oh, okay. In that case we are in agreement. I too think that Song China had almost all it needed to take the quantum leap into an early industrial age, but that the wrong socio-economic mix (and, ultimately, the Mongol invasion) kept it from actually doing so.

dancing in the raing is sometimes crazy

 

[Nik]

Chinese Electric Pots ??

So, those Sumerian Electric Pots stay a goldsmith's gadget until Courier in China notices his 'north seeking stone' points off...

Next thing, telegraphy...

 

[Historico]

MY Research

A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley civilization. An amazing sewage and drainage system, uniform standard of weights and measures, and advanced buildings are evidence of this. The ancient Harappan systems of sewage and drainage that were developed and used in cities throughout the Indus Empire were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban sites in the Middle East and even more efficient than those in some areas of modern India. The Harappans were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures. The advanced architecture of the Harappans is shown by their impressive dockyards, granaries, warehouses, brick platforms and protective walls. The massive citadels of Indus cities that protected the Harappans from floods and attackers were larger than most Mesopotamian ziggurats. Unique Harappan inventions include an instrument which was used to measure whole sections of the horizon and the tidal dock. In addition, the Harappans evolved new techniques in metallurgy, and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin. Clearly, the contributions of the Indus Valley civilization to the fields of science and technology are numerous.

The Harappans were great lovers of the fine arts, and especially dancing, painting, and plastic arts. Various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry, terracotta figures and other interesting works of art indicate that the Harappans had fine artistic sensibilities. The art of the Harappans is highly realistic. The sheer anatomical details of much of Harappan art is unique, and terracotta art is also noted for its extremely careful modeling of animal figures. Sir John Marshall once reacted with surprise when he saw the famous Harappan bronze statuette of the slender-limbed "dancing girl" in Mohenjo-daro:

When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed so completely to upset all established ideas about early art. Modeling such as this was unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece, and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely have been made; that these figures had found their way into levels some 3000 years older than those to which they properly belonged. ... Now, in these statuettes, it is just this anatomical truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in this all-important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off age on the banks of the Indus.

The toilet, contrary to popular belief, was not invented within the last 200 hundred years. The Minoan palace of Knossos, in ancient Crete, contained the first flushing toilet that was known as a "water closet." This latrine came complete with a wooden seat and a small reservoir of water for flushing. The circumstances surrounding the first flush, however, remain shrowded in mystery.The Minoans had a complex system of terra cotta piping underneath the palace that supplied both hot and cold water to its toilets, fountains and faucets.

From the reliefs we can reconstruct the size of the depicted objects. With a length of 2,5 meters, a largest thickness of one meter and a smallest thickness of 50 centimeters we can calculate the volume roughly as a truncated cone of approximately 2 m length ( Volume = Pi * h /3 * (r12 + r1 * r2 + r22) and a hemisphere of one meter diameter (Volume 2/3 Pi r3). The combined volume is around 1,12 cubic meters, the surface of the object amounts to approximately 6,3 square meters.
The volume represents, as we will see, a substantial point against a technical interpretation of the Dendera reliefs.
All lamp constructions are based on few technical principles.


Solid state lamps are based on semiconductor junctions and have, like light emitting diodes, minimum volumes.

Gas-discharge lamps such as fluorescent lamps or phosphor/neon lamps need enriched high vacuums with noble gases (neon) or metal vapours (mercury).

Filament lamps normally contain a high vacuum, in order to prevent a burn through of the filament, or a filling of an an expensive noble gas.

Halogen bulbs have a filling of chemically reactive gases, which oppose actively the evaporation of filament material.

Gas high-pressure lamps contain reaction gases under high pressure and have the best luminous efficiency.

All these lamps, with the exception of the LED, contain thus either a gas in not inconsiderable quantity, or a high vacuum. Therefore the lamp must withstand either a large pressure (approximately one kilogram per square centimeter), or it contains not inconsiderable quantities of different, expensive gases.

In the first case a pressure of about 63 tons would rest on a Dendera object. To withstand such an immense pressure, the object would have to be quite thick-walled, at least two to three centimeters thick. The weight of this bulb would be then approximately 750 kilograms. And this monster would be nevertheless a ticking time bomb: a small crack in the glass by uneven cooling with the manufacturing, and the Dendera lamp implodes with the force of a bomb. The fragmentation effect might be deadly in the periphery of several meters!

1898, a peculiar six-inch wooden object was found in a tomb at Saqquara, Egypt that dated back to about 200 BCE. The object had a body or fuselage, seven-inch wings that curved downward slightly, a fixed rudder and a tail. It looked very much like a modern airplane or glider. But since airplanes had not yet been invented in 1898 (never mind ancient Egypt), it was labeled as a model of bird and stored away in the basement of the Cairo museum.

The object was rediscovered many years later by Dr. Khalil Messiha, an authority on ancient models. According to Messiha and others who have studied the object, it has characteristics of very advanced aerodynamics, much like modern pusher-gliders that require very little power to stay aloft. The curved wings are today known as reversedihedral wings, which can attain great amounts of lift. A similar design is employed on the supersonic Concorde aircraft.

The 15 February 1998 issue of The Augusta Chronicle featured an article by Randall Floyd titled "Flight may have begun before Wrights:"


In 1969, while sorting through a box of old exhibits in the basement of the Cairo museum, Egyptologist Khalil Messiha found what appeared to be a 2,200-year-old model airplane, complete with wings, landing gear and an aerodynamically designed body.

The object had been found in a 2,000-year-old tomb near Saqqara in 1898. The archaeologist was stunned. What would a perfectly scaled model of an airplane be doing in a tomb of such antiquity?

His conclusion: "Apparently the ancients possessed long-forgotten technologies," he said. Egypt's Ministry of Culture agreed. A committee set up to investigate the matter concluded that the 7-inch-long model, built of light sycamore wood and weighing only 1.11 ounces, seemed to incorporate principles of aircraft design that had taken modern engineers decades of experimentation to discover and perfect.

Moreover, they found, the glider worked. More than two millennia after its construction, it still sailed easily through the air at only the slightest flick of the hand.

 

[Historico]

My POD

After all my research I have come up with an plausiable pod for an early Industrial Revolution...Here are some of the advanced Techniques used by the ancients.

1. Advanced Metallurgy from the Indus Valley, as well as City Construction

2.Toliet's and Waters systems from the Minoans.

3. The Dendra Lightbulb

4. The Saquarah Model Airplane


Here is an Rough Sketch of my scenario.


Let's say when During the fall of the Harrapan Civilization(1900-1500 Bc, most of the Meluhha People instead of Migrating further into India...Gradually Travel west to their Sumerian Neighbors creating an large Meluhhan community which still practices the old Indus Valley Techniques. Meanwhile the Egyptians create and rather primitive but successful Lightbulb and the Minoans come up with their Toilets and other Waterworks. An Minoan Merchant traveling in Italy crossess the Alps and discovers the vast Germainic forests and thinking of Egyptian Paypurs comes uo with Paper Making. He returns to Crete(Before the Thera Eruption) and shows King Minos the effective art of Paper Making, Minos is intrigued an orders the Merchant to go back to Germany and begin making Paper Mills. Egypt and the other states of the Mid East find and wonder about this new material. Ideas bieng published cheaper the spread of the citzens of the Medeterranien to be able to express themselves with an new found freedom. Ideas such as Meluhhan Metallurgy, Minoan Toilets, and the Egyptian Lightbut

The Egyptian Pharoah orders and expediton to be sent out to try to find it's own paper scources. An Combined Expedition leaving from Punt journeys into the Dark Interior of africa...One of the Soliders get bit by an Misquito and dies of an mysterious Illness. The Disease spreads like wildfire from the members of the Expedition through Punt, Nubia, and Egypt. The African Civilization population falls to less than 50 % and it soon spreads through the mid-east and Crete. Slaves are hardest hit the most but, the existence of surplus labor in much of the world (much of it in the form of slave labor) has tended to stifle technological development as it relates to labor saving devices. Why put a steam engine to work draining the water out of a mine, when you have a gang of slaves working hand pumps that does the job? Why harness your looms to a water wheel when you have slaves who can run the looms manually? Why bother with a computing machine to tally the results of your imperial census when you have hundreds of trained scribes who can do the work? But the severe decreases in population because of the "Black Death" causes an reawkening of Ideas both Politically and Locally. The Populations bounce back with an new attitude.

 

[carlton_bach]

Highly implausible, for a large variety of reasons.

Paper is no analogue of papyrus, the production methods are entirely different

Minoan 'waterworks' are a great deal less sophisticated than is usually implied

The Dendera 'lightbulb' is an example of conjecture gone wild

Italy (let alone Germany) is not healthy territory in the second millennium BC.

 

[Historico]

Highly implausible, for a large variety of reasons.

Paper is no analogue of papyrus, the production methods are entirely different.

Papyrus...bieng an rather non effective material could inspire the Merchant to look for more resources.

Minoan 'waterworks' are a great deal less sophisticated than is usually implied.

That might be True...but I heard somewhere that the Minoans had powered Factories or sometihing around those lines. I am going to check in on that.

The Dendera 'lightbulb' is an example of conjecture gone wild

Well Why not, I mean we know that The Egyptians Invented Glass Making...and there is evidence that the Babylonians had created primitive Batteries about 200 BCE. So If the Egyptians discovered an way how to conduct electricticty...they could devolp an primitve light bulb using metalsmiths and Glass Workers.

Italy (let alone Germany) is not healthy territory in the second millennium BC.

Yeah I know...That's why the Scenario was my Rough Draft...Let's say the Merchant was supposed to conduct bussiness with the native Iberians in Spain. He wondering what might be passed the pillar of hercules discovers the Portugese coast. He travels inland and discovers the rich trees and establishs an Minoan Lumber Industy producing Paper and other materials.

 

[Leo Caesius]

Well Why not, I mean we know that The Egyptians Invented Glass Making...and there is evidence that the Babylonians had created primitive Batteries about 200 BCE. So If the Egyptians discovered an way how to conduct electricticty...they could devolp an primitve light bulb using metalsmiths and Glass Workers.

Actually, that Egyptian glass is really more properly what we would call a frit. They would mix alkali with sand or quartz and melt it. The result was a kind of colorful (yet hardly transparent) slag that was fashioned into beads or amulets. These were found in Mesopotamia as well as Egypt, and as is often the case, IIRC no one is sure exactly when or where this practice originated. Glassblowing (in the modern sense) would have to wait for the Phoenicians.

 

[DuQuense]

Minoans had Factories in that they brought all the proccess steps together in one place [ i.e. cleaning carding spinning Weaving] but it was all hand powered.

 

[Othniel]

Minoans had Factories in that they brought all the proccess steps together in one place [ i.e. cleaning carding spinning Weaving] but it was all hand powered.

Outside of a conver belt so was Henry Ford's Model T factories. The Cottage industry was always hand powered. I think the trick is a esembly line production, replacable parts, and mass production concepts in use as soon as possible. Essymbly lline production introduced by someone in Aristole's time could be pracital. It just requires that you have a large group of peasents with money, and a need to supply them. Such ideas may be pracital in building an earlier industirial society... lets say in producing Siege weaponry, or a printing press. An industrial society is more of business philospy than anything else.

 

[Historico]

Minoans had Factories in that they brought all the proccess steps together in one place [ i.e. cleaning carding spinning Weaving] but it was all hand powered.

Interesting I like the Idea of earlier basis for Mass Production...and with the Glass...Im sure some techniques could be discovered. Also...Are there any Lumber scources that would be avaliable to the countires of Second Milennium BCE?